Wired Autopia’s Damon Lavrinc got the chance to drive the Volkswagen XL1 in Germany. Lavrinc, who has a wealth of experience writing about automotive technology and alternative powertrains, gives us a good picture of what it’s like to drive the XL1, from the awkward entry/egress, to the seemingly underpowered air-conditioning system to the lack of a simple iPod connector (because that adds weight, natch). Check it out over at Autopia.

34 Comments on “Volkswagen XL1 First Drive Hits The Web...”

Help me out here. This state of the art, carbon fiber, crowning achievement of a trillion dollars of R&D, 2-seater weighs in at 1900 pounds, sans iPod adapter. A 1981 Ford Fiesta that seats four in mild discomfort weighs 300 pounds LESS. I guess the VW does look cooler.

Crash the two into each other and see what happens. My bet is that the NVH situation is considerably better in the VW, too. Oh yeah, and there’s that second powertrain: electric motor and attendant batteries.

VW lost the plot when they went plug-in. The 1L (now XL1) was always supposed to be about making 100 miles on 1L of fuel in a closed energy loop. VW realized it would be long and hard, so they slapped a plug on the side, and proclaimed victory.

+1 (except mls/km ;))
The XL1 shows the truth about vw engineering.
They need more than 10 years to develop a 250 units halo car no one will ever buy (lease, fleet & showroom queen only).
They manage to launch it only months before the mass production BMW i3 goes on sale which offers a similar tech package (carbon fiber, 2 cyl range extender (gas, not diesel)) for half the price and the interior space of a usable car.

Not to nitpick, but 10 figures is a billion, not trillion. Still a massive investment in efficiency, but not quite as ridiculous.

Does anybody know the approximate average cost to bring a new car to market? Just curious how $1 billion stacks up relative to the cost of an all-new car. How much R&D goes into a new generation 3 series? Accord?

They’re only building 250 copies, and only for Germany and Austria at the moment.

Anyone driving this in ‘normal’ fashion will certainly not get 261 mpg if they consume 1 extra drop of fuel, and then the whining about false EPA ratings will begin (assuming eventual US sales).

At 12k miles a year, the Tesla Model S will cost about $400 more to operate. Yet it’s beautiful, cheaper to buy, seats 5, and goes like the wind. Who will really want the XL1, except those who like driving science projects?

A Corvette will do about 75% of a Veyron’s top speed for 1/20th the price. To get the best of anything, you by defintion bow to the gods of diminishing returns and throw value for money out the window. I’m pretty sure that this car isn’t intended for anyone other than those who want a science project. If it were, VW would probably plan on building more than 250 of them.

At one point, the gasoline-powered car was seen as nothing more than a rich playboy’s plaything, too. This is how these sort of things get started.

But the press latches onto the ‘261 mpg’ thing – that term appears in nearly every headline about the car – as though this is the aspiration of every consumer. It receives road tests in the same manner.

The Truth About the XL1 is that it’s really just a rolling research project. Since they’ll be leased, I wouldn’t be surprised if VW crushes all of them at the end of the lease – they’re not worth long-term field support.

So you expected a carbon-fibre, ultra-low-production, specialty-built car designed to be the most fuel-efficient in the world while passing current NCAP safety tests to sell for considerably less than a Chevy Volt? You don’t really get business or engineering, do you?

Do people understand this project?
Polution/costs/dependency on the Middle East/not wasting time at the gas station are all reasons to use less energy for personal transportation.
Ferrari has it’s FXX and VW has it’s XL1. Both cars tuned for specific performance and both are thus aimed at a specific audience.

Interesting how things have come full circle. Ferdinand Porsche developed the first gas-electric hybrid car back in 1901 for Lohner, Ferdinand Pieche is Porsche’s grandson, and now Piech has developed a diesel-electric hybrid car. Not suprising that Piech would develop a low-drag car like this one, as he was always a stickler for low-drag cars when he was running Porsche’s racing department. Same thing with the carbon fiber chassis, when he was developing the Porsche racing cars he was always pushing for lighter materials to be used like titanium, and the 1971 LeMans winning car had a magnesium frame. If I recall correctly there was a experimental trial version of the 917 engine fan that pulled air up from under the car to cool the engine and gain some downforce too, but it didn’t cool the engine enough.

The fact that the car will be leased is no big deal, considering they didn’t let the public own the Chrsler turbine powered cars, or the GM EV-1 either. GM cheated though by having AeroVironment do a lot of the development work for them.

Car exists primarily to be seen getting in and out of (check)
Car made of exotic materials (check)
Excessive price is a main selling point (check)
High price still subsidized for Porcshe/Peitch family & friends? (check)
Purpose built for something wildly pointless that makes it useless as a daily driver (check).